YRCH
by Countess Verona Dracula
Summary: PG13 For violence.... Two brothers are violently separated and the first orcs are created... FINISHED!
1. Restless Twilight

YRCH  
  
Two brothers are separated as the first orcs are created...  
  
DISCLAIMER: As much As I wish I owned the magical land of Middle-Earth, I do not. I am making no profit from this short story. The characters Calenel, Ramruin, Dae-alda, Aglarel and the hamlet Bar-en-Annon are mine:-)   
  
A.N.~ I use two slightly different words to represent the word 'green' in this: 'calen' and 'galen' in the names Calenel and Galencarch simply because when I pronounced the name 'Galenel' it sounded just plain wrong (figure it out yourself!:-) and because it prevented redundancy in the story when there is myriad of words in the Elven languages to be chosen. ANYWAYS... This is set before the Elves journeyed to Valinor, at the time of the creation of the first orcs. Enjoy!  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
A balmy breeze flowed peacefully, lazily even, along the length of the trees; whisperings of song arose from their brushing branches and called out to Calenel (A.N.~ Green star) in a way only Elves can understand. He smiled at its calling but resisted the urge to simply sit and listen to its beckoning melody; after all, there was a hunt to do and food to secure.  
  
By all rights Calenel did not have to be hunting; his father Dae-alda (A.N.~ Shadow-tree) was alive and well and his family could go without food if needed, but calm and loyal Calenel enjoyed feeling that he was needed. Silently he slipped along, following the tracks of a deer he had wounded minutes before. It pained the tender-hearted Elf to not have made a quick and clean kill, and it hurt him even worse to know that the poor creature was out there in pain now. He moved his pace up to a jog as he resolved to catch the deer and put it out of its misery as quickly as possible. So intent he was on catching this innocent creature that he did not notice the sinister shadow slinking into step behind him.  
  
It trailed him through the emerald canopy of the vale and did not balk at the fractal patterns cast by the golden sunlight melting through the pale leaves. The thick undergrowth of bushes covered in berries and clad in dark green leaves thin and oblong of shape did not deter it either. Calenel enjoyed the pristine beauty of the forest, oblivious the marring shadow. Birch trees spread their limbs high and filtered the sunlight so that the quarry of a hunt could be seen while supple pine trees nicely coated with needles provided shadows for both the hunter and the hunted. Shapely ash and yew trees dotted the vale too, perfect for the bows such as the one Calenel carried already. Calenel paused at a slender silver stream to look carefully at some tracks and blood the deer had left in the rich brown earth, squinting to see in the sparse light afforded in the shadow of the towering oak tree that stood sentinel by the stream.  
  
He became utterly absorbed in his task; the young and springy grass told him that the deer had paused to drink (the small puddle of blood beside the stream was explanatory of this) then stood still (deeper footprints betrayed this) and listened for any sound. Carefully he rose, looking appraisingly around the clearing. The deer had taken his arrow to the ribs, probably very close to its heart. It couldn't be far.  
  
Calenel turned very carefully on his heels, his placid green eyes searching the vale for any sign of movement. He heard a rustle in the undergrowth behind him. His muscles tensed and he stood very still. If it was the deer, then it might mistake him for another shadow as he was still standing beneath the majestic oak and he could lure it into the open, but perceptive Calenel felt it could be something... else... He stood still as stone; his heart tightened in his chest and his throat tightened in terror's grasp. His blood turned to red sludge and he felt lightheaded. Calenel thought that if this new threat did not kill him first, the terror certainly would.  
  
The terror was shattered by a hand descending on his shoulder.  
  
Calenel whirled suddenly, adrenaline screaming through his blood which now seemed like red quicksilver. So he seemed to move, spinning out with a wide kick to the side. It grabbed his heel and flipped him over so he landed on his stomach, smacking his forehead on the ground solidly. Despite his whirling head, Calenel flipped over again and punched out; again he was caught and foiled. A series of kicks followed his recovery and everything was happening too fast for Calenel to identify his assailant. He fought on pure adrenaline and feral instinct, but every blow he executed was seamlessly and perfectly blocked. Calenel leapt backwards and titled to the side and backwards, resting all his weight on one leg and doing a powerful side-kick. This time, when the attacker tried to push him backwards again, Calenel forced himself down so he landed on the other leg with his back leg out behind him. As he did so he used his momentum to punch forward; his hand was caught solidly in the palm of his attacker.  
  
Palm?  
  
Most beasts did not have a palm, a smooth, humanoid palm.  
  
Nor did they have bright eyes of dusky red color.  
  
Dusky red?  
  
All these thought flashed through Calenel's brain at the considerable speed of his punches and kicks, so it took him only a split-second's pause to think them. But with this enemy, a split-second was a split-second too many. He felt his arm wrenched around but not so that it was snap out of its socket and then jammed against his back. Another hand grabbed his shoulder and pushed him forward onto the ground; a knee connected with his back held him there.  
  
"You do get overly paranoid when you hunt, brother." A familiar and laughing voice came from his 'attacker' as he stood up and released him.  
  
"Ramruin!" (A.N.~ Wall of Red Flame) Whined Calenel. The only thing forthcoming from his younger brother was a hearty laugh as the relatively bruised Elf picked himself gingerly off the ground and retrieved his dropped bow. "Now I'll have lost the catch and left that poor deer to die-" Calenel never finished the sentence for Ramruin whipped his bow off his back and shot an arrow, literally, into the dark. There was no sound from the target, just a stomach-clenching crack as it penetrated bone and a thud as the unfortunate creature fell to the ground. The ever-cocky Ramruin walked confidently over to the bushes and drew out a deer, already wounded by an arrow in its ribs and felled by an arrow to the neck.  
  
"You were saying, Calen?" Ramruin flashed a charming grin to his ruffled brother.  
  
"Quit being so cocky." Calenel quipped.  
  
"Quite being so grumpy!" Ramruin shot right back gleefully.  
  
"And my name is not 'Green' it's 'Green-STAR.' How would you like it if I called you 'Wall' all the time?" The Elf grumbled, uptight about his proper name. (A.N.~ Calen means green, el means star. Ram is wall, ruin is red flame. I got it from the back of the Silmarillion.) Ramruin snorted and as he was pulling the arrow out and it nicked him. "You certainly are thick enough." Calenel added dryly as Ramruin yelped in confused pain. This earned Calenel a prize-winning glare from his younger sibling along with a tussle in the grass. As the now ready Calenel pinned Ramruin, he smiled broadly. "Happy birthday Ramruin."  
  
~*~*~*~*~  
  
Good spirits prevailed as the brothers walked home through the vale. The journey would not take lone as the lush vale was the southern border of the small Elven hamlet Bar-en-Annon which they called their home. The hamlet was aptly named, Bar-en-Annon meaning Dwelling of the Great Gate, for the hamlet was surrounded by a tall and thick wall made of trees from the vale, but perhaps the true reason it was called Dwelling of the Great Gate was because of how it had been founded so many years ago.  
  
The Elves of the city, among them Ramruin and Calenel's father and mother Dae-alda and Aglarel, (A.N.~ Brilliant Star) had wandered away from the larger group of Elves struggling to find a place in the vast world. They came upon the vale one night, and frightened by the dark presence they sensed in it during midnight's reign, they fled in haste. As they broke the eves of the shadowy vale, they saw two towering oak trees, a hundred feet in height, bathed in the starlight, standing perfectly together at a distance of fifty feet apart. Calenel had been alive at the time, but very, very young. Snippets of the flight through the vale were retained in his memory, but clear as his celery-green eyes he remembered coming upon the trees.  
  
They were gargantuan monuments to nature's craft, hundred feet high and ten feet in girth. He remembered, cradled in his mother's arms, looking upward through the crisscrossing branches to see the starlight filtering through, multiplied by the ethereal wonder of the trees. He knew it was home. So did the adults, who saw tremendous potential in the spot. The land was flat and clear around it, broken only by the vale and the mysterious far-off mountains to the north. The ground was fertile and there seemed that no one had a claim upon its virgin soil.  
  
So they began to build their houses in the morning, going to a nearby stream (another asset to the place) to gather stones to make foundations. The women, Aglarel with Calenel on her hip among them, gathered the seeds of the hardy trees in the vale and began to plant them in a perfect circle about two hundred feet in circumference. Come the next spring the trees had grown into beautiful saplings and Ramruin was born. Everything was going well for six-year-old Calenel; he had food to eat, a place to sleep, a family and a safe hamlet full of friends.  
  
Then the troubles started.  
  
It appeared that those mysterious mountains to the north were the home of Utumno, the great fortress of the evil Valar Melkor whose other unspoken name was Morgoth. His demons and beasts began to inhabit the forest and strike out at the small hamlet. The seasoned warriors fought them back each time, but more always seemed to be coming, so they devised a plan of defense for the tiny hamlet.  
  
Although it pained their hearts, they cut down the strongest trees in the vale and hacked off the branches of the two oak trees. In-between the saplings they drove the branch-shaven trees from the vale, just far enough so that the saplings would grow to the desired width in time. The mightiest trees they placed between the two oak trees to form two great gates that could only be opened from the inside or else by a secret password known only to the dwellers of the hamlet. And so the hamlet was named for that great gate, carved with stars filled with shining silver and imbued with the magic of nature, for they had two living gate posts and a living wall protecting them.  
  
The forces of Melkor withdrew as the wall literally grew. Elven craftsmen, among them Dae-alda, carved beautiful depictions of nature into the wall and filled them with a type of silver known as ithildin (A.N.~ The stuff on the door of Moria in FOTR.) so that it glowed in the moon and starlight. They no longer thought along the premises of safety; who cared if everyone saw their glowing hamlet like a silver beacon in the night and helped their attackers as much as it helped the defendants? There were no enemies anyway, Melkor had withdrawn from their lands and they were free!  
  
Whenever someone made that very statement, Calenel would smile, but his heart was full of woe, for the forest was disturbed by something; leaves fell untimely in the vale now, disturbed by some ill wind. But no one seemed to see this... Then again, not many people spent as much time in the forest as Calenel anyway. Perhaps that puts them at a disadvantage... Perhaps I should tell them... Calenel thought, but he brushed this thought away as quickly as it had come. Why should he think such things? It was a happy day, Ramruin's birthday! But still.... Why had Calenel, ever alert, been caught off guard by his brother's presence? Why, indeed, had he been on his guard in the first place, in that peaceful vale? Calenel did nothing more than shake these vital thoughts away as they approached the massive gate. It was Ramruin's birthday. Nothing would spoil that.  
  
But still, those dark clouds hanging over the mountains worried him more than a little.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
Day passed quickly in the company of his family, Dae-alda his father, Aglarel his mother and Ramruin his brother. He looked upon them now, in the beauty of evening, with adoration and love. His father looked just like him, but for his maple-red eyes. He had silken blonde hair, cut rather short for an Elf (it fell just above his shoulder) and was very slight of build for a male of his race. He was an artist as their artful cottage betrayed, covered in pictures of gorgeous natural vistas that brought nature indoors on the rainiest of days. Also like Calenel, he was the unwilling warrior, skilled enough in arms but hating to kill anything and preferring to spend his days preserving the beauties around him in art.  
  
But if something threatened that beauty, Melkor couldn't stop his wrath.  
  
Aglarel was angelically calm and graceful now, in her matronly glory, but in her maidenhood she was a fiery young woman more eager and competent than many males around her. Slim and light, many were amazed at the power she packed in her slender frame. She had strawberry colored hair falling below her shapely waist and soft blue eyes with a tint of green rimmed by thick black eyelashes that, when batted, could get her the moon stars, sun and then some from her enchanted husband. Having children had overwhelmed and tamed her fiery spirit, and now her solace was in watching them grow and enjoying the serenity around her with her husband.  
  
Calenel was the eldest, having the build and temperament of his father, but the softness of face and eyes of his mother. His eyes themselves though, were the palest green shot with gold and darker green, resembling the light filtering through the forest he loved so much. There was no mistaking them. There was no mistaking Ramruin's eyes either. They were like his father's, but without the gentleness for he had gained the spirit of his mother, perhaps even more feral and reckless at that. He was heavier of build than the others but would be slim to one of the race of men (A.N.~ I know they don't exist yet.... Couldn't find a better comparison:-) and was often eager to fight off anything that threatened his home, which sometimes meant Calenel would search for him only to find him trying to have a swordfight with the woodpeckers trying to peck holes in the trees of the wall.  
  
Keeping his spirit in mind, Aglarel had selected his present from among some of her old belongings. It was an Elven battle sword named Culcarch (A.N.~ Golden-red Fang) for its biting steel and the reddish-gold tint its metal took when it was swung fast around. The slender and slightly curved weapon had hung, crossed with its twin Galencarch (A.N.~ Green Fang) which was once carried by his father over the hearth. For some reason, (probably because of the gory implications of its name) Ramruin had always favored and adored Culcarch more. Now, since it was highly unlikely peaceful Aglarel would ever raise it in battle again, it was being passed on to Ramruin.  
  
Aglarel now brought he treasured blade to her son; wrapped in several layers of homespun brown cloth, it seemed a homely gift at best, but eagerness was brilliantly alight in Ramruin's eyes as he reached for the package. Dae-alda slipped his arm around Aglarel's waist and kissed her forehead tenderly while they, and Calenel, watched ecstatic Ramruin reverently raise the scimitar from the simple wrappings and hold it in the firelight disbelievingly so the carved runes filled with lustrous rubies glimmered richly and with searing heat in the glow. Everyone knew what the runes said: Gurth gothrim Tel'Quessir which means 'Death to the foes of the Elves' in their tongue.   
  
Ramruin seemed to hold very still, the silver blade's reflection sparkling in his eyes. All the cottage held still too, even the crackling flames froze as images flashed across the reflection of the blade in his eyes, images of blood both black and red spurting from mortal wounds, shouts in the fair Elven speech that he knew so well and a dark, guttural and incongruous tongue that grated roughly in Ramruin's pointed ears. He shuddered, and then he blinked and reality was back upon him.  
  
"Ramruin? Are you all right?" Aglarel's melodic voice asked. Ramruin's head jerked up and happiness was in his face.  
  
"Ai! Amme diola lle!" (A.N.~ Oh mother thank you!) He cried joyously, hugging his mother.  
  
"Lle creoso, Ramruin." Aglarel said affectionately, returning the embrace. This tenderness did not last long though, for soon energetic Ramruin was chasing Calenel around the room with the scimitar leveled at him. The parents sighed.  
  
"Well, we knew it would happen." Dae-alda laughed, pressing another kiss into Aglarel's smooth hair. He did not see the frown on her face though.  
  
"Yes.... But I did not think so soon..." Aglarel murmured distantly, her cryptic message bearing more then just sadness at her sons' fast growing. Her blue-green eyes wandering beyond the walls of her house and outside to the night; it was pitch black in Bar-en-Annon, but the mountains housing Utumno seemed to be drenched in simmering blood.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
A.N.~ Grrrrrrr bad me! I can't write anything shorter than two chappies!!! *runs around in circles pulling hair out* This was suposed to be one but it was gettin' to long so I'll finish it in another chapter (hopefully by tonight.) Please read and review! 


	2. Red Dawn

A.N.~ Sorry for not finishing like I said *wacks head against wall* I was inspired to do my more lighthearted (and shorter) fic Prove Yourself as well as the angst/romance VERY short fic the Sweetest Sin about the movie the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, throw in a week long vacation.... Anyways.... THE SHOW DOES GO ON!!!   
  
A.N.2~ Also I need to brush up on my Elven history, so I might have a couple things wrong, like I'm not entirely sure the early Elves knew Melkor/Morgoth for who and what he was and I can't remember which name came first, Melkor or Morgoth so... Tell me if I have something wrong but don't be mean about it!  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own LOTR (dammit!) And am making no profit from this story (dammit!)  
  
Dedication: I dedicate this to Bitchie Witchie because..... ehhhh..... BECAUSE I DO!!!!!  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
PART TWO: THE RED DAWN  
  
After many mock fights that had their parents laughing, Calenel and Ramruin slipped into their beds and fell asleep without another word. The next morning as usual everyone in the house was awake before Ramruin and out and about doing things. Dae-alda was carving a new table for their cottage while Aglarel cooked breakfast and Calenel went outside to tend the fields. Ramruin was always shaking his head at Calenel's 'unhealthy habit' of working so much, and every morning he'd wake up to see Calenel, fully dressed, heading out.  
  
"Where are you going?" He'd mumble into his pillow groggily, even though he knew the answer.  
  
"There is much work to be done." Calenel would smile, heading out to the fertile fields. That was always the answer, but still Ramruin asked, every morning. It comforted Ramruin to know that Calenel would always do that, every morning, that he would always be there to shoulder those heavy burdens without complaint. Ramruin knew he could never do those things.  
  
As Calenel walked along the rows of herbs and vegetables he looked to the sky and at the red dawn offset by the silver mist writhing around the plants in wraithlike forms, sending a pleasant tingle down Calenel's spine as he inspected the cabbages with a smile. This smile, however, was short-lived, for forms more spectral and frightening began to appear around he and the other farmers. Calenel shook it off and went to look at the tomatoes.  
  
He didn't notice the others. They all fell silently.  
  
When they came for him, he fell silently too, but for the sickening squelch the tomato in his hand made, spraying ruby juice onto the emerald earth.  
  
Ramruin did not awake to a bucket of cold water in his face that morning. Instead he awoke to screams of horror and the clang of blade upon blade singing with the twang of bowstrings and the whoosh of flying arrows. He threw himself out of bed, scrambling for the window and Culcarch at the screams of the neighbors.  
  
"THE SKY! THE SKY IS RED!"  
  
And indeed, when Ramruin looked outside it was a red dawn.  
  
He took Culcarch bravely in hand and ran outside to meet the demonic mass with the others. He felt the insatiable bloodlust of Culcarch, but even its bloodlust was nothing when Ramruin realized that Calenel was out there without a weapon. Without thinking and without care for his own safety Ramruin plunged in, swinging his blade across up and down, cutting an imp in half at the waist, its companion neatly in half, and a nearby wolf in half down the spine. He threw himself further into the melee, looking for the larger and more humanoid demons.   
  
One found him.  
  
Or rather, its scimitar did.  
  
Ramruin whirled in time, falling backwards on a bent knee with his other leg out straight and holding his own scimitar up in a desperate diagonal parry. The beast sneered and pressed closer, inching Culcarch towards Ramruin's throat. Pretending to be afraid, Ramruin slowly worked his other foot underneath him until he was in a crouch, and then he sprung forward, launching himself like an elven missile for the things face. Their foreheads collided, sending his assailant to the ground. He stabbed it quickly and turned to face the next one. It came in with a deceptive right slash that turned into a thrust; Ramruin turned the blade aside and went for the opening, but his opponent moved in first, swinging his sword down and trying to cut Ramruin in half diagonally. Ramruin skittered to the side and dove in, under the intended strike, burying his blade to the hilt in his opponent's chest.  
  
With a wicked twist he withdrew it, flinging the body into the face of the oncoming enemies. As he went into his own dance, rough and crude as it seemed at times, Culcarch glowed more red then gold, a tribute to the sky above. The Elves seemed to be winning, and with victorious shouts they began to drive back the enemies when a sudden wind whipped by, carrying a deadly fog. It seemed to have a life of its own, heading for every orifice it could find on Ramruin and darting in. There was a dull, thudding pain mingled with stabs of white-hot agony in his head, and then there came an ebony cloak and senselessness.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
That senseless oblivion continued until a horrified Aglarel shook her son awake and pushed him indoors. Ramruin hardly understood anything his mother and father said as they embraced him. He was numb with shock and confusion still, but it all fell away like so many garments when he heard the name Calenel floating innocently along through his ears.  
  
"Where is he?" He croaked in a voice not his own.  
  
"We could not find him." Dae-alda said softly, his hands running comforting circles over Aglarel's back as she buried her face in the crook of his neck. "Everyone who was in the fields this morning was not found, and those who were... they were not of the living." A dry sob slipped from Aglarel's lips and Dae-alda turned his attentions to her and away from his son, who unfeelingly went outside to find Culcarch lying in the dirt along with the debris of his shattered soul. He looked up to the sun, having melted from a red dawn to a red sunset with the turmoil of stark blue in-between, fast-fading.  
  
All Ramruin could see were two eyes of gentle green, shot with gold.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
(A.N.~ Quick, somewhat funny note about this next section... I was swimming on my back underwater and I looked up and that inspired this. Also I copied part from another fic of mine that I will NEVER post here:-)  
  
The light... How inviting and golden it was above him, amidst the soothing blue waters around him. He reached his hand up towards it, reaching to grasp the light in his fingers, to make it his own, but as he reached upwards for it, it seemed to fade, and as he stood up from the cooling waters how cold the world seemed. Still he reached for the light, trying violently to hold it. Perhaps if he hadn't been so intent on the light, he would've seen the water turning to green and grey, darkening into black. Perhaps he would've been ready and could've escaped, but he was so intent on the light.... Suddenly the sea of black blood swallowed him up and the light was gone, but darkness was all around him and it was equally as pleasing as the light...   
  
Calenel gasped and threw himself out of the dream with vicious vehemence for the perversion it inflicted upon his love for nature, how it twisted the crystalline prism he viewed the wondrous world through and funneled light into dark, drawing him further down the path to blackness and despair. And as he wrenched himself from the dream, he did it with hatred for himself.  
  
Because he was beginning to enjoy it.  
  
But the time for dreaming was over and the time for torture had begun, and as that cold and frightening laugh signaled the beginning sounded mercilessly, Calenel screamed, he screamed with all he was worth, in defiance as much as pain.  
  
Blackness...  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
A month slipped by without anyone noticing, least of all Ramruin. Time flies when all you can do is lament and remember with bitterness, and train without purpose or heart. He was training at that moment, viciously attacking a thick tree stump at the back of the hamlet, chips of wood flying in his face as he hacked at it with abandon. Culcarch whined as it whistled through the air, as if in protest to the mundane practice it was being made to do. Ramruin answered by giving the tree stump one more almighty diagonal slash, then sheathing the sword and stalking away, silently suffering from anger and hopelessness. Once more the sun had been born amidst the scarlet hues of a red dawn, and still there had been no attack by Melkor nor word about the captives he had taken. Ramruin looked to the sky, not bothering to shade his eyes against the setting sun, for they were already stung with tears, and felt that though all was light around Bar-en-Annon, they all were in the dark.  
  
Silently and unfeelingly Ramruin ate his dinner and bade his parents good-night, then slipped into bed and fell immediately asleep. When he was sleeping Ramruin had been finding a soothing solace for the past month, for in dreams Calenel was with him and the fields were tall and green and he'd wake up to know that Calenel would always, always be there to shoulder the heavy burdens of work without complaint and take care of the family no matter what. He was in the vale with his brother in his dream that night, and they were walking silently. Grey smoke was drifting through the vale, and so vivid was the dream Ramruin could actually smell it.  
  
A fire! A fire in the vale!  
  
Ramruin turned to warn his brother, but saw, with horror, that his brother was engulfed in flames like a phoenix dying. Calenel tipped his head to one side sadly, looking disappointed.  
  
"You could not save me, brother." He whispered.  
  
With a strangled, guttural cry Ramruin launched himself at Calenel, trying to wrench him from the flames and deny what his brother had said, but the flames swept him away, leaving nothing but ashes sifting through his fingers to fall upon the ground. Ramruin froze, tears stinging his eyes. Would Calenel leave him in his dreams to? He wanted to scream in agony and rage, but he stopped, for the ashes began to take form on the smoky wind, like a ghastly phoenix reincarnating. Ramruin staggered back, terrified as he saw the beast that approached him. The fire roared close behind him and thick black smoke engulfed he and the monster, making the ground impossible to see. Red roared all around them, tongues of flames leaping up everywhere and forcing Elf and monster together. The monster sneered and raised a fist, punching transfixed Ramruin dead on in the face, sending him whirling into the fire...  
  
But the fire felt strangely cold...  
  
Ramruin slammed into the cold floor of the cottage and sat up, sweating heavily. He heard the roar and crackle of flames all around him and smelt the smoke wafting through the window next to his bed. Throwing on his boots and girding on Culcarch hastily, he opened the window wide and smoke poured in. Coughing and sputtering, Ramruin struggled to look out the window and saw that Bar-en-Annon was no longer surrounded by a ring of living trees but a ring of living fire. Without cognitive or sane thought, Ramruin flung himself out the window and ran to find the other warriors, ignoring the flames all around him, the searing heat that permeated his skin and burnt his bones. He heard the rallying cries of the Elves as they chased after a group of shadows, oddly humanoid for the fiends that Melkor usually attacked with...  
  
He ignored this and plunged into the midst of the warriors, barely sliding through the crashing gates as they burned down in red glory. His skin was badly singed but this he ignored too, for he and the others were gaining on the running shadows and they would pay, they would pay dearly for the hurt they had caused. The chase went on, leaping over the logs and streams of the vale, darting around trees and trying to get a clear shot with a bow while running after the shadows. It was like an obstacle course race to the death. Finally the shadows began to tire, or at least they gave the appearance to. They whirled without warning, shouting jeering calls and battle cries as they drew crudely made and wickedly twisted swords and charged in.  
  
The first line of Elves had barely enough time to stop and draw their sword before they were skewered, but the second line was ready, and bloodthirsty. When Ramruin saw what they fought though, he gasped in horror and fought the urge to retch. They were mutilated, mutilated beyond recognition with brown or green skin; some even had mottled red skin. Some had eyes that were tightly squinted, wide others had large frog-like eyes of a piercing and putrid green. All held a feral light. Their hair was coarse and black, pulled back so far as so almost stretch the skin and show off the exaggeratedly pointed ears that were often lined with rows of earrings. Many had piercings all over them. Some were swarthy and bow-legged, while others stood straight, tall and menacing at a height equal to most Elves. A demonic energy flowed hatefully through them as they charged, and they were found to be a worthy opponent for the Elves, so that each found themselves having to fall not into wild melee, but deadly one-on-one combat.   
  
Ramruin had frozen in terror, but he unfroze when he saw one of the hideous creatures on the other side of the small bowl where they had started to fight. He was taller then the rest, heavily muscled and scarred with a intricate tattoo across his face. His sword was less crude, more straight, but wickedly sharpened and double-edged. Chain-mail gauntlets with spikes along the sides covered his hands and lower arms, while plate armor protected the rest of his body. His boots were made of metal too, and they ended in dagger-like points. With a wretched snarl that made Ramruin shiver as it advanced. Across the fast growing maelstrom between them, a short forty feet that seemed like leagues and leagues of time and space swathed in the robes of time their eyes locked, and Ramruin's maple red eyes widened in alarm as he saw the eyes of the advancing creature.  
  
They were brown. A sickening, muddy brown, but as its slow and determined walk brought it closer and closer to him, he saw flickers and flecks of gold and green, and those eyes were as filled with darkness and malice as Calenel's eyes had been full of light and love.  
  
What had seemed like leagues suddenly evaporated into a few inches as the wretched thing raised its sword high above its head with a snarl that must've been its form of a laugh. At last Ramruin came to his senses at the screaming mental calls and raging bloodlust flooding Culcarch and spreading through his arm like a sizzling wild fire through dry brush. With a fierce and incongruous cry Ramruin flung himself onto his assailant, sending both of them tumbling to the ground. Ramruin landed on top, again so close to those frightening eyes, but he had little time to wallow in his horror for the creature head butted him and then picked him up by the sides of his shirt, flinging him like a twig into a nearby tree. Ramruin was ready though, and as the creature gave a wild yell and charged in at full force he braced himself against the tree's roots and at the last second diverted the charge with a mighty heave of the curved Culcarch.  
  
A cry of exultation was next to pass Ramruin's lips as his enemy smashed into a tree and staggered away, dazed. Ramruin didn't see the feint coming, for as he charged in himself (but with more caution) the creature was ready, forcing Culcarch backwards along Ramruin's arm, almost snapping his wrist and then snapping his blade around to try and slice the Elf in half. Ramruin knew that move though, a strange and poignant reminder of the many spars he shared with Calenel. On reflex he flipped his blade forward again at the sudden opening, cutting a superficial gash across the bottom of the creature's throat, drawing a thin line of scarlet and also cutting one of the leather straps that held up the breast plate it wore, causing it to hang limply, exposing the mottled red and black skin and muscular chest of his attacker.  
  
After the slash went successfully through, Ramruin flipped his blade around and sent it into a dive, narrowly diverting the creature's blade and forcing him to jump back. He used the momentum of the jump to dash in again, scoring another glancing hit on his enemy's stomach, which caused it to growl in rage and swing its sword around towards the side once, but as Ramruin moved to step back and parry, he was yet again reminded of his playful duels with his older brother and instead moved the scimitar upwards at the last second to catch the falling blade of his enemy. The foul fiend had reversed the swing, sending it upwards and then flicking its wrist to bring it whistling down towards Ramruin's exposed shoulder. Ramruin smirked in triumph and spun around to break the lock their blades had been caught in, catching the suddenly lower blade of his enemy with the crossbar of his own blade and holding it high in a more favorable lock. With his free hand he pulled a knife from his waist and made to jab it into the exposed stomach of his attacker, but the creature dropped its hand and caught his with a smirk of its own.  
  
It had anticipated that.  
  
Before Ramruin could straighten and leap away, the spiked knee of his opponent came smashing up into his face. He managed to pull back a little, but as he staggered away he felt blood racing down his face in torrential streams of scarlet. More and more adrenaline flooded his body as he flew in on the demon, attacking almost faster than the beast could parry. Many glancing blows marked the foul devil and at last as it found a foothold and abruptly slowed Ramruin's rhythm, catching his sword high and then low. Ramruin raised a fist and slammed it into his opponent's face, stunning the beast. Without hesitation, he plunged his blade into its chest.  
  
Culcarch sprouted out the other side of the creature's body like a macabre black flower in bloom. Ramruin followed up the strike with his body, finding himself so close to it that their noses almost touched. He found himself gazing into those eddied pools of mud some might call eyes; they had begun to clear in death's fast rising tide. Ramruin saw all too clearly spots of green shot with gold like dollops of sunshine amid the sickening brown... Angrily he shoved the disfigured creature off his blade with a sturdy kick, ignoring the hot gush of black blood that spurted onto his boots.  
  
"Yrch!" He spat as it tumbled to the ground, christening the tortured souls the name that would bring anger and revulsion into the hearts of Elves everywhere for millennia to come: orc.  
  
As Ramruin woefully looked around the desolate scene, he was glad to see that no more of his comrades had died after the initial rush. Also he was relieved to note that none of the orcs had been Calenel. Ramruin knew beyond all doubt that the vile creatures were the captured villagers (for their strength, dexterity and skill were far beyond the capabilities of any other fiend spawned by foul Melkor) having been tortured endlessly until they broke and submitted. But he also knew beyond all doubt that Calenel's soul could NEVER be broken, not like that.  
  
But still, when he looked towards those haunting eyes, caught in metamorphosis between a muddy brown and clear green and gold, a chilling recognition sent shivers down his spine...  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
The endless black melted and shifted like molten granite around him, and through it rays of light fell. At last! Light! Through the endless ebon-hued shadows, unquenchable light! He reached up to touch it, not to own it, but to enjoy and embrace it, and it flooded his mind...  
  
Peace...  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Ramruin was afraid, terribly afraid at that moment. He turned and began to walk away, and that fear stopped him from seeing the two pools of clear cool green, shot with gold, untainted by mud and full of an unsaid 'thank you.'  
  
Calenel approved of his fate.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
He walked home in silence, Culcarch sheathed at his hip. No feelings came from the relatively sentient blade, no hum of life vibrated through its gracefully curving blade, still warm and sticky with black blood. Even as he unconsciously rested his hand against the hilt, no rush of bloodlust, no burst of adrenaline set them both aquiver, for both were hollow and unfeeling. Through the still-smouldering wall of Bar-en-Annon he walked, not looking at the carnage around him, his eyes trained on the small cottage in front of him. He walked in and saw that a portion of the roof had been burnt away and a red-tinted light was dripping lazily onto the spot where his mother and father stood.  
  
"Ramruin!" Aglarel sobbed, approaching her son and sobbing at the grievous slashes on his face; one eyes had swollen shut and was never to open again. He bent and kissed his heartbroken mother, then embraced his father, but he did not reply. Ramruin had just died on that battlefield, he had left the shattered remnants of his soul to drown in two half-changed eyes until the churning seas rose up and swallowed the world. Even though he did not believe that the orc he had killed out there within the ethereal domain of the vale was Calenel, he knew that his beloved brother was not coming back.  
  
So, he went to the wall and hung Culcarch in its rightful place. Its rage, and his, had been sated in one bloody battle. Then he headed for the door again, still saying nothing.  
  
"Ramruin? Where are you going? Ramruin?" The words of Dae-alda fell hollowly and distantly on his ears, and still he walked out into the sunlight. He took a deep breath and steadied himself, and then he walked out towards the barren fields.  
  
There was much work to be done.  
  
~ Fin~  
  
A.N.~ JSYK, the reason the orcs in the battle were so tough is they are the original Elves, still retaining their battle skills and therefore equal to the good Elves... Anyways, read and review! 


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